Kukla's Korner Hockey

The Canucks did entertain moving Bieksa, who is in the final year of a contract that pays him $3.75-million, prior to the season, but they kept coming back to one difficult truth. Their team was run out of playoff-quality defencemen in a second straight postseason loss to the Chicago Blackhawks last spring, and trading Bieksa would allow for that possibility again.

That same logic – and Sami Salo’s uncertain return from a ruptured Achilles tendon – still applies heading into next month’s trade deadline, and moreover, Bieksa may have made himself too valuable to trade. (Being Vancouver’s only right-handed defencemen also helps his odds of staying).

The Canucks still must clear salary-cap space, about $1.5-million, to get Salo back on the active roster, but it appears less and less likely that they will move Bieksa to do so.